Gorgeous Freak of Nature: Building Dweezil Zappa's Custom PRS

It’s a rare musician who’s both uncompromising and completely adaptable. But that perfectly describes Dweezil Zappa. It’s a duality that informed some of his father Frank’s most irreverent, inspired, and famous work. It’s also a musical mindset that equipped Dweezil to tackle Zappa Plays Zappa—an ongoing tribute project that finds Dweezil dissecting Frank’s work at the subatomic level, while also infusing some of his own improvisational color.

Enormous in scope, musically demanding, and subject to the scrutiny of fans that could fairly be termed religious, Zappa Plays Zappa is a project that would send most musicians running for cover. But for the unflappably mellow Dweezil, it was a challenge of manifold appeal. “I really liked the idea of giving fans an authentic experience, to hear the music as Frank intended,” he says. “And that meant I had to really get into it and push myself, too. I’ve had to expand my own abilities.”

Dweezil found the means to expand his playing vocabulary even further when he took delivery of a custom PRS guitar built to his specs early this year. With 24 frets, a semi-hollow body, and 57/08 Narrowfield pickups set up with an out-of-phase selector, it’s a guitar packed with expressive potential. But it was also conceived to help Dweezil reproduce the incredibly varied tonal landscapes his father created live and on record. And if Dweezil has his way, he won’t be alone using this model to create music in the years to come.

Premier Guitar talked to both Dweezil and the director of PRS’ Private Stock program, Paul Miles, to find out more about the design philosophy, materials, and minor madness behind this very special instrument.

Dweezil, were you compelled by any specific musical needs when you were designing this guitar?

Zappa: Every guitar has a personality that’s going to speak to you and dictate what you’re going to do with it. And I like responding to guitars that way. But in Zappa Plays Zappa, I had to figure out how to deal with the fact that Frank played a lot of guitars—SGs, Strats, Les Pauls, and some earlier stuff like 335s and Hagstroms. So I wanted a guitar that could get a big range of flavors and be a blank slate as I moved into other areas on my own. I’ve never had a guitar with 24 frets. Having 24 frets and the ability to get to them so easily and comfortably opens up a lot right there.

Paul, what was it like working with someone so open-minded and open-ended in their approach to a custom instrument?

Miles: Dweezil knew a lot about what he liked and what he wanted, and he was very good at conveying his ideas. That made us feel a lot more in control of the project than perhaps we actually were [laughs]. But we were also very lucky that he liked the first stock instrument we sent him, so there was some reference there. Dweezil’s a very down-to-earth guy too, so it was like working with a buddy.

What was the design process like?

Zappa: I’ve never had a chance to build a guitar like that—from the ground up. So I was really happy when the finished product turned out so close to what I imagined. I ended up trying to incorporate some oddball elements in the ornamentation, things like the bass- and treble-clef inlays, but I’m most happy about weird things in the wood that occurred naturally—all these freaks of nature put together in a single, beautiful instrument. The top, which had a rare, naturally occurring variation that results in the tiger stripe and curly going in a single piece, really spoke to me. I figured that kind of schizophrenia occurring in nature would have to lend some character to the guitar. And the headstock is built from this spalted maple—a diseased piece of wood with squiggly details that looks almost like a brain. The back looks a bit like a checkerboard, and the back of the neck has a crazy tiger stripe.

Miles: That top is one of the craziest pieces of wood we’ve ever seen, and it really set the tone for what the guitar would be, in a way. It was a piece of wood that everybody in the shop loved, but it was funny—no one would take a chance on it. When Dweezil saw it, though, he had to have it. But I think it really fits his personality. The back is a kind of African mahogany that’s a little bit heavier and denser than most mahogany. The neck was a nice piece of curly maple, and the fingerboard was Macassar ebony. Dweezil had sent us a picture of him playing one of his lemonburst Les Pauls, and he was really going for that kind of feel. It’s a neat mix of new and old influence.

Left: Rick Ames sands the flamed maple neck on Dweezil Zappa’s custom PRS. Center: The guitar midway through the finishing process (note Zappa’s name in the neck-pickup cavity).
Right: Brian Lutz in the spray room. Photos by Paul Miles

Gear Editor Charles Saufley is a career writer and editor from San Francisco. Before joining Premier Guitar he served as Associate Editor at Acoustic Guitar magazine (where his predecessor was esteemed PG Editor in Chief Shawn Hammond.) He became music obsessed not long after birth—thanks in no small part to older siblings who ‘babysat’ him with a set of headphones, Revolver, and Sticky Fingers. Charles still spends a lot of time listening to records. And his many git-fiddle heroes include Roger McGuinn, Pete Townshend, Tom Verlaine, Eddie Phillips, Nokie Edwards, Gabor Szabo, John Cippolina, Randy Holden, Erkin Koray, Greg Ginn, and Sonic Youth.

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